His face expressed so much bewilderment that Nicole passed her hand gently over his eyes. "No, that thou wilt never understand. If I could only tell thee how I love thee!" She wanted him to know the deep maternal longings that he had stirred within her, but all she found to say was, "I feared to love thee too much, and so I fought against myself." Then, with the first awakening of coquetry, she nestled on his shoulder and said confidently, "Forgive me." "But why? Why?" "It absorbed all that was in me, and I was afraid." "Of what?" She did not want to tell him of her doubts, so she said: "Women have foolish ideas, Barabant; you must not try to understand them." She joined her arms around his neck and laid her head upon his shoulder. Suddenly the silence was rent by the inexorable cry. In the heart of Nicole something penetrated like a knife. She began to tremble. "Why do you shake so?" he asked. "It is from joy." "You love me so, then?" When the silence returned, she said: "Barabant, promise me but one thing." "I promise it." "When the day comes that you are leaving me for another woman, tell me first." She added low, as though she did not want him to hear: "I can kill myself without seeing her in his arms!" Barabant, recoiling before such a picture of the future, cried from the bottom of a heart of pity: "Never! Never!" "No--I could not leave thee, even so," she said, weeping herself at the thought she had conjured. "Let me always be thy servant. I am only an ignorant girl, not fit to be thy companion. Let me take care of thee, though, whatever happens!" "No, never that! Never! Nicole, it is for life, forever!" he cried with the sincerity of the moment, which is the sincerity of the lover. He was young, generous, quick to pity, and he adored her. "You do believe me?" "Almost." He redoubled his protestations, while Nicole, laughing through her tears, cried gaily: "Go on, Barabant. It is good to hear. Don't stop--more, more!" At last she herself arrested his protestations: "Yes, Barabant, I believe thee. Oh, anything you can say to me I'll believe at this moment!" "That I want thee while I live?" "Yes." "Forever?" "For--ever." She drew herself up to his lips. "I have been so miserable waiting for thee." Their lips met and they stood in the darkness as one body, while above, unheeded, from the darkness broke out the cry of life and death. "Thou wilt not leave me, Nicole, again, neither now nor ever?" "Do I not love thee?" she said simply. They passed from the shadow and moved, tightly enlaced, through the dim region of the dwindling torch, slowly up the steep, hard steps into the enveloping darkness beyond. Again was lifted up the cry of anguish and rebellion, the cry of Prometheus, heritage of woman, and again came silence. PART II (One Year Later) I FAMINE